Mobility and protection - impact of equipment and threat

Authors:

  • Danielsson Ulf

Publish date: 2006-01-01

Report number: FOI-R--2186--SE

Pages: 20

Written in: Swedish

Abstract

Motion is considered an important part of ballistic protection. However, passive shelter as a ballistic protective vest impedes the ability to move,. This report presents data on speeds a soldier can achieve in various environment, marksmanship when shooting at immovable and moving targets and the risk for injury when being hit. Running longer distances without load can be done at a speed of 4 m/s while a light fighting load reduces speed to 3 m/s. At daylight, in rough terrain the speed is around 1 m/s at tactical approach. Using NVG the speed is around 0,7 m/s in the dark. Short, repeated dashes wearing a light load, between 2,5 and 3,5 m/s can be reached while 6 m/s is possible at an occasional rush wearing a light load (20 kg) and 5 m/s with a heavy one (42 kg). Climbing a net or crawling can only be done at low speeds, less than 1 m/s. Assault rifles were used for the marksmanship. Hit probability has been obtained at three shooting conditions; immovable target at 100 and 200 m, moving target (3,5 and 6 m/s) at 70 m shooting distance and duel against two targets, separated 18 m at a distance of 20 m. The speed of the moving target had little impact on the hit probability. The risk of being hit is primarily a question of exposure time where a longer time allows more shots to be delivered. Even very short exposure, around a second, leads to a significant risk of being hit. More than 3 s is associated with almost 100 % risk of being hit by at least one bullit. The probability that one shot produces; no injury, light, life-threatening or fatal injury given being fired at was 12, 24, 16 and 15%, respectively at an exposure time of 1,5 s provided that the target, wearing protective vest with hard plates, is hit laterally. Corresponding risk after 3 s of exposure was 21, 42, 28 and 26 %, respectively. After 6 s the risk was a few percentage units higher. Exposing the front or back results primarily in reduced risk for fatal injury.